5 ms·
Why is it usable for word processing but unusable for programming?
by anamexis 6y ago
Why is it usable for word processing but unusable for programming?
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoUsually word processing and typesetting have word-wrap enabled. This is undesirable in a program. The 9:16 screen may still be useful for programming though, because it's nice to have some documentation out on another screen.
- munificent 6y agoWord processors soft wrap text to whatever window width you want. Code editors need to be as wide as the code.
- emayljames 6y agoAtom, VSCode, Dreamweaver and others also use soft wrap by default.
- nicoburns 6y agoSoft-wrapped code tends to be pretty difficult to read though. Certainly much more difficult than wrapped prose. Personally I prefer horizontal scrolling over wrapping code pretty much always (at least on a mac where horizontal scrolling is easy).
- jlarcombe 6y agoXcode used to be really good at softwrapping code. It was so useful with the assistant editor on a laptop screen. It got worse at some point around Xcode 8 or 9, which was a shame.
- jlarcombe 6y ago(further to this, I realised earlier that it got better again in Xcode 11 - it no longer double-indents wrapped lines)
- wolco2 6y agoI can't imagine an editor without soft wrap as the default. Sublime, wordpad, vim all use soft wrap.
- fanf2 6y agoIn the office I have two 1080x1920 panels, which can each display two columns of code with room to spare. I use the X11 6x13 “fixed” font, and emacs with fringes but without scrollbars, so each column is a few more than 80 characters wide. At home I have two 1200x1920 panels, a bit more horizontal breathing room, but my code is still less than 80 wide :-)